The disclosure relates generally to a pad assembly and more particularly to a floor polishing or grinding pad assembly.
It is known to use fibrous pads for polishing and grinding floors within industrial or commercial buildings. Such polishing or grinding pads are ideally suited for use on concrete, terrazzo, and natural (e.g., marble), engineered and composite stone floors. Examples of such pads and the powered machines used to rotate such can be found in the following U.S. patents and patent publication numbers: 2011/0300784 entitled “Flexible and Interchangeable Multi-Head Floor Polishing Disk Assemby” which was invented by Tchakarov et al. and published on Dec. 8, 2011; U.S. Pat. No. 9,174,326 entitled “Arrangement For Floor Grinding” which issued to Ahonen on Nov. 3, 2015; U.S. Pat. No. 6,234,886 entitled “Multiple Abrasive Assembly and Method” which issued to Rivard et al. on May 22, 2001; U.S. Pat. No. 5,605,493 entitled “Stone Polishing Apparatus and Method” which issued to Donatelli et al. on Feb. 25, 1997; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,054,245 entitled “Combination of Cleaning Pads, Cleaning Pad Mounting Members and a Base Member for a Rotary Cleaning Machine” which issued to Coty on Oct. 8, 1991. All of these patents and the patent publication are incorporated by reference herein.
Notwithstanding, improved floor polishing and grinding performance is desired. Furthermore, some of these prior constructions exhibit uneven wear in use which prematurely destroy the pads or cause inconsistent polishing or grinding.
In accordance with the present invention, a floor polishing or grinding pad assembly is provided. In one aspect, a polishing or grinding pad assembly employs a fibrous pad, a reinforcement layer or ring, and multiple floor-contacting disks. In another aspect, the reinforcement layer includes a central hole through which the fibrous pad is accessible and the fibrous pad at the hole has a linear dimension greater than a linear dimension of one side of the adjacent reinforcement layer. In yet another aspect, at least one of the floor-contacting disks has an angle offset from that of a base surface of the disk, the fibrous pad and/or the reinforcement layer. A further aspect employs a smaller set of disks alternating between and/or offset from a larger set of the disks. In another aspect, the reinforcement layer includes a wavy or undulating internal edge shape. Still another aspect includes different abrasive and/or floor-contacting patterns on the disks. A method of using a fibrous pad employing multiple polishing or grinding disks is also presented.
The present pad assembly is advantageous over traditional devices. For example, some of the disk configurations, such as disk angles and/or offset placement of disks, of the present pad assembly advantageously create more consistent wear characteristics when polishing or grinding, thereby increasing their useful life and consistency of polishing or grinding. These angles cause more even inner and outer wear of the floor-facing side of the pad assembly. Furthermore, the present pad assembly advantageously allows greater floor contact with the fibrous pad within a centralized area generally surrounded by the disks, in various of the present aspects, which is expected to improve polishing or grinding performance. In other configurations of the present pad assembly, the disk patterns, disk quantities, disk-to-disk locations and inner edge shapes of the reinforcement layer may provide improved liquid abrasive flow characteristics during polishing or grinding. The preassembled nature of the fibrous pad, reinforcement ring or layer, and the abrasive disks makes the present pad assembly considerably easier to install on a floor polishing or grinding machine than many prior constructions. Additional advantages and features of the present invention will be readily understood from the following description, claims and appended drawings.